


Blizzards, Les Mis Fighting Games and Other Reasons Why It Sucks to Be Evred

by indevan



Series: Barbarian Invasions: a Modern Inda AU [2]
Category: Inda series - Sherwood Smith
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-01
Updated: 2013-03-01
Packaged: 2017-12-04 00:06:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/704211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indevan/pseuds/indevan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Communication is hard.  Life is hard.  Les Mis fighting games are hard.  Mostly just if you're Evred, though.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blizzards, Les Mis Fighting Games and Other Reasons Why It Sucks to Be Evred

If there was one thing Evred was spectacularly bad at (other than sports), it was being in a relationship.  The fact of the matter was that he had never been in one and, thus, had no idea how to be in one.  Truthfully, he thought that his burgeoning relationship with Inda was going better than he expected.  They texted each other often, hung out when they were able, and they were even getting the cuddling thing down.  In fact, after several weeks of dating, Evred was feeling mostly good about the relationship.  Mostly.  There was something that he was beginning to find strange and, the more he thought about it, the more it bothered him.

“Do you think it’s weird we haven’t had sex yet?”

Evred directed the question towards the two forms on the couch who were more immersed in whatever video game they had rigged up on their television set than his question.

“I think it’s weird that this is the third time you’ve asked that,” Cherry-Stripe replied.

Cama nodded his agreement, his head bobbing above the bong as he reached his hand down to light it.  Cama and Cherry-Stripe weren’t his first choices to seek out relationship advice from but Noddy was in grad school in England and discussing romantic matters with Tau still made him squirm.

“Well?” he prompted. “You never answered me.”

Cama exhaled and placed the comically oversized bong back on the carpet to rest between his feet.

“It’s not,” he said, voice sounding thick. “Have you talked to him about it?”

Evred felt his face heat up. “...No.”

Cherry-Stripe turned his head to glance at him over the couch and smirked.

“So there ya go.  Just talk to him.”

Their advice wasn’t particularly helpful so, instead, Evred made his way round the couch and sat on the arm to see what they were playing.  Cherry-Stripe was particularly skilled at getting ROM games to play on his television set with the aid of controllers rather than attempting to play it on a computer.

“What’s this?” he asked, jerking his chin towards the screen.

“Les Mis fighting game,” Cama replied.

“...What?”

“The Les Mis fighting game,” Cherry-Stripe reiterated.

Evred balked at the screen as he watched the characters fight each other in a style reminiscent of Street Fighter.

“Yes,” he said finally. “Because when I hear, ‘tragic French epic,’ I think, ‘2-D fighting game.’”

“Yep!” Cherry-Stripe said happily.  His thumb moved along the controller in a complicated series of button mashes. “Ha!  Eat barricade, motherfucker!”

Cama let out a stream of curses.  Evred sighed and got to his feet.  Nothing was going to be accomplished at this point.  He was just going to have to speak to Inda.  He turned just in time to hear the door to the apartment open and skidded to a stop.  Tau stood in Cama and Cherry-Stripe’s kitchenette.  Surprisingly enough, he wore a t-shirt from the production of _Les Miserables_ he had been in at the community theatre with a black cardigan and black skinny jeans.  Even dressed so simply, Tau glowed.  Or maybe Evred was a little bit secondhand stoned.  The appearance of the shirt, though, was not just coincidental with the game that the others were playing but it was after Tau’s last performance of that show when the two of them had hooked up.

“Hey, Evred,” he greeted in his usual manner, lifting a hand laconically as if it were a bore to do so.  His eyes sparkled with mirth, though, and Evred felt his face burn.

“Hey, Tau!” Cama called without turning around. “You can have next round.  Landred is kicking my ass over here.”

Walking surprisingly light in his Doc Martens, Tau floated over to the couch.

“Wait...you’re here to...?” Evred’s brow furrowed.

A slow, easy smile. “To play the Les Mis fighting game, of course.  Cherry-Stripe texted me since he thought I’d be interested.”

“Oh.”

Of course.  Tau wouldn’t just show up because he knew Evred was here.  Cama made room for him on the couch, scooting himself and the bong over before handing Tau the controller.  Tau’s hair was tossed over one shoulder and loosely braided.  Evred remembered undoing his hair from a similar braid in the backseat of his car while their breath and the heat from their bodies steamed up the windows.  He gulped.

“Are you going to play?” Tau asked, flicking his gaze to where Evred stood.

“Actually, I was just leaving.”

“Sponge came here for relationship advice,” Cama said and Evred was overcome with the desire to grab his eye patch and snap it against his face in a manner that would make Mo Howard proud.

Tau’s eyebrows went up. “Really?”

Knowing that he couldn’t leave now, Evred made his way back around the couch only to be handed Cherry-Stripe’s controller.

“I picked Robo Valjean for you,” he said, grinning.

“Robo...Valjean?  You mean Jean Valjean--”

“As a robot.”

“Bless this game,” Cama said, cackling.

Tau’s lips curved upwards into a smile.

“I believe the best part is, if you listen closely, you can hear Victor Hugo rolling in his grave.”

Evred settled on the couch, clasping the controller with both hands.  He was never very good at video games.  He had too many bad memories of his older brother during Mario Party where every time he lost, someone got hit in the face with a controller and that someone was usually Evred.

“What’s your problem?” Tau asked.

“Nothing.”

Tau was far better at this game than he was.  Evred remembered playing Tekken with Aldren in an arcade once and, to win, his brother forcibly shoved him to the ground.  Evred had fallen to the grubby carpet on the floor of the arcade and bit his tongue so hard that he nearly severed the tip.

“Is it Inda?”

“It’s.  Nothing.”

Cama lifted his head up from taking another bong rip and affirmed, “It’s Inda.”

Evred shot him a sizzling glare.

“It’s really nothing.”

Tau dropped a barricade on him.

“Nothing?” he asked, arching his brows.

“They haven’t had sex yet,” Cherry-Stripe supplied.

He was beginning to think that he needed new friends.  Before Evred could utter something in his own defense, the door to the apartment banged open.

“Hey, buddy!” Dogpiss’s loud, jovial voice carried over to where they were.

“Ah, Kramer’s here,” Tau said dryly.

Onscreen, his Enjolras KO’d Evred’s Robo Valjean.  He put down the controller but Cherry-Stripe smacked him on the arm.

“Round two, dude.”

Evred sighed and got ready to lose again.  He smelled the familiar smells of weed and Old Spice deodorant that signaled that Dogpiss was right behind him.

“What’s up?”

“Evred has boy problems,” Cama stated. “Also, Les Mis fighting game.”

“Ooh, I’ve got next.  I wanna be Javert.”

He swung himself down on the couch and squeezed between Cama and Tau, effectively crushing Evred against the couch’s arm where Cherry-Stripe was perched.

“So things aren’t going well with Inda?” he asked.

Dogpiss held his hand out for the bong and Cama happily passed it over.  With a frustrated cry, Evred flung his controller down and jumped up from the couch.

“Enough!” he erupted. “I didn’t come here to have fifteen different people critique my love life!  And I certainly didn’t come here to lose terribly at a fighting game based on a nineteenth century novel!”

“Why is that the worse one?” Tau asked plainly.

Evred let out an aggravated scream and tore out of the apartment, barely remembering to grab his coat as he left.

\--

“Do you think it’s weird that we haven’t had sex yet?” Inda asked this as he slurped up the half-melted dregs of his third Blizzard of that afternoon.

Jeje sighed and turned from him to clear out a leak from the spigot of the machine.

“I think it’s weird that this is the third time you’ve asked that.”

He slumped over the counter where he was leaning and stared into his empty cup.

“Well...I’m wondering if it’s me.  I’ve never been with a guy before, y’know?” Inda glanced up and grinned at her suddenly. “Know what’ll help?”

Jeje gave him an incredulous look and shook her head.

“I’m not making you another Blizzard.  I’m cutting you off--you have ingested way more ice cream and chunks of Reese’s cups than is healthy.”

Inda sighed and picked his cup up to dispose of it.  He was really confused about Evred.  Was he nervous?  The problem with Evred was that he never let anyone know what he was thinking, which often left Inda guessing.  He had been this way since they were children but it was particularly bothersome now since they were dating and he had no clue if he wanted to have sex with him.

“Well, what do you think?”

“I think that we’ve been having this conversation for way too long.”

“Know what would keep me quiet?”

“I’m not making you another fucking Blizzard.”

Jeje’s pocket vibrated and she reached into it to extract her cell phone.

“Text from Tau,” she reported and began reading off the screen, “‘Les Mis fighting game.  I am so glad this exists.  PS E is having a coronary.’”

“He sounds high--I bet he’s high.”

She dropped the phone back into her pocket and shrugged. “He said he was going to Cama and Cherry-Stripe’s so, yeah, he’s probably high.”

“And Evred is freaking out...over a Les Mis fighting game?”

“I think he’s more than likely freaking out over you.”

Inda sighed and dropped his head to rest in his hands.  Evred was probably wondering the same thing but he didn’t speak to him about it.  Then again, Inda wasn’t speaking to him either.  He was bothering Jeje at work and consuming enough Blizzards to constitute a medical problem.

“Is this a clue that I should go talk to him?” he asked.

Jeje looked at him with her straight, even gaze and he was glad that it was her he was bugging and not Tau.  Tau would want to address the situation from all angles and attempt analysis.  Jeje would just appraise him and say the most direct solution.

“Wait until he calms down.  Talk to him at Daggers tonight.”

“Oh, right, it’s Tuesday, isn’t it?”

Every Tuesday was eighties night at their favorite bar and none of them ever missed a night of laughably bad karaoke and drinks renamed as, “St. Elmo’s Long Island Iced Tea” and “Total Eclipse of the Cosmo.”

“Yeah, talk to Evred there over, like...shit, what are the potato skins called?”

“Potato skinsteen candles,” Inda supplied.

“Right--talk to him over a plate of those and just...figure it out.  Don’t fuck around.”

Inda grinned and leaned happily over the counter.

“Jeje, you give the best advice.”

She glared at him in return as if reading his game.

“I’m not making you another Blizzard.”

\--

When Evred arrived at Daggers Drawn that night, they had already switched to the theme night.  WHAM! was playing over the speakers and the ancient old bartender was setting up the karaoke machine.  Some of his friends opted to dress up but Evred came as he normally did: bowtie, suspenders and all.  He found their usual table and saw that it was only occupied by his cousin Barend.

“So what’s this I hear about a Les Mis fighting game,” he said by way of greeting.

Evred sighed heavily.

“Can we not?”

Barend looked surprised at the biting tone of his words and passed over his drink.

“Bad mood?  Want some of my Breakfast Club soda and vodka?”

Evred took the glass and then frowned at it.

“This isn’t club soda.”

“No, it’s Diet Coke.  But let’s let them have this one.”

Evred nodded his agreement and took a long sip before handing it back to Barend.  The drink was mostly vodka and it burned going down but he welcomed it.

“So what’s the problem?” Barend asked.

“Relationship stuff.”

His cousin nodded sagely and took another drink.

“I can relate.  Fox and I have been...having issues lately.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really.  The world doesn’t revolve around you and Inda, you know.  The rest of us can have relationship issues, too.”

There was no malice in his words, though, so Evred just laughed.

“I think we never know if we should be friends or boyfriends,” Barend continued with a shake of his head. “Sometimes I don’t know if I’m even his friend...I might be his keeper.”

Maybe Evred was a little bit happy that someone else was miserable as well so he just listened.

“And Fox doesn’t like Billy Joel.  Who doesn’t like Billy Joel?”

Evred shrugged.  Barend was getting tipsy, which meant that he got vehemently defensive about Billy Joel.  It was the strangest side effect he had ever seen to someone getting drunk.  The others began arriving and, of course, Tau was first.  He slid gracefully into his seat and smiled at nothing in particular.

“My plans are to get very drunk and then perform both parts of ‘Under Pressure’ by myself,” he said, eyes alight.

“Ha!” Barend exclaimed suddenly. “We know what you did last time you got drunk, right Tau?  Wait, wait, by ‘what,’ I mean ‘who’ and by ‘who,’ I mean Evred.”

Evred had a suspicion that this wasn’t his cousin’s first Breakfast Club soda and vodka of the evening.

“Where’s Fox?” Tau asked rather than reply, leaning forward and raising his eyebrows.

Barend shrugged.  They both knew that Tau was asking simply to change the subject.  He would be much happier if Fox didn’t show up at all.

“Hey, guys!”

Evred felt his face heat up.  Inda came to sit next to him, spooning the remains of a Blizzard into his mouth.

“This is my fifth one,” he told Evred, grinning broadly. “Don’t tell Jeje.  She cut me off after three so I went to another Dairy Queen on my way over here.”

“That’s...”

Inda leaned over and kissed the corner of his mouth.

“I’m so glad to see you--how much sugar do you think is in these things?”

“Uh--”

He clamored into Evred’s lap and rested his head on his shoulder.

“I’m so happy right now!” His breath smelled like hot ice cream.

“Um...Inda, I actually wanted to...talk to you about something.”

He cocked his head to the side and let his Blizzard cup drop to the floor of the bar.

“Yes, Sponge?”

“I...was wondering about, well...”

Over Inda’s shoulder, he saw Tau raise his eyebrows and his face went hot.

“Do you want something to eat?” he finished pathetically.

Inda looked disappointed and crawled off of his lap and back into his chair.  He picked up the laminated menus made for this particular night and let his eyes rove over them.

“Sure...do you want the potato skinsteen candles or the stand by meatballs?”

Tau laughed in a way that Evred knew was to break the tension.

“I think the only actual creative rename here is the dessert called the truffle shuffle.”

Inda mumbled something into the menu and didn’t say a word.  Other patrons were entering the bar and the resulting din was starting to drown out the music being played overhead.  A particularly loud group seemed to just arrive.

“Do you hear the people sing?  Blah-blah-blah-blah-blah...sing!”

Cama and Cherry-Stripe loped over to their table and plopped down.

“We spent the last three hours playing the Les Mis fighting game,” Cama said proudly.

“Also we’re high.”

“So there _is_ a--” Barend started.

“Can we not?!” Evred demanded in exasperation.

At his insistence, the conversation stayed to tame topics.  Inda wasn’t looking at him, though, and that hurt.  Why couldn’t he just tell him what he was feeling?  Around them, festivities were underway.  Someone was up onstage butchering the hell out of a Pat Benatar song and Evred looked around for someone to take his drink order.  He saw no one and didn’t feel like getting up so he settled for sneaking sips of Barend’s drink.

Some time around eight, the door to Daggers banged open and near everyone looked over to see a tall, lanky redhead come swaggering in.

“Oh, good,” Tau muttered under his breath, scarcely looking up from the text he was sending to Jeje. “Fox is here.”

Fox stumbled up onto the stage and punched a number into the karaoke machine that was scrawled on the back of his hand.

“Barend!” he crowed.  Evred rolled his eyes.  He was beyond wasted. “This song...is for you.  Because I love you, you fucker.”

Even drunk, though, Fox wasn’t a half-bad singer.  He didn’t recognize the song at first as he sang the opening, only slurring the words slightly.  Barend realized it first because he stood up from the table and slammed his hands down on it.

“It’s Billy Joel!” he screamed. “HE’S SINGING BILLY JOEL!”

“I’m shameless!” Fox sang. “Shameless as a man can be!”

He was beginning to sweat and was clearly getting into it.  Tau smirked and held his phone up to record the moment for posterity.  When he finished, Fox nearly fell off the stage and tumbled right into Barend’s arms.

“Mmmph,” he mumbled against his shoulder. “Let’s go back to our place and fuck.”

Barend laughed and stroked Fox’s sweaty hair. “Okay.”

As they left, Evred wondered how it was that easy.  Granted, they were both more than a little drunk but that was besides the point.  He looked over at Inda who was poking at his plate of potato skins.

“Inda...” he began, speaking quietly so only the could hear.

No one went up next for karaoke so they instead piped the music back on.  Journey began playing.  Evred knew the song as “Faithfully” since his father said it was the first song that he and his longtime partner, Jened, first slow-danced to.

“Yeah?”

“I...really like you,” he said. “Um...and...if you’re nervous about having sex...I can wait.”

Inda goggled at him, potato skin half-hanging out of his mouth.  He spat it back onto the plate.

“Nervous?  I’m not nervous.  I thought you...huh.” He grinned. “So...wait, then you’re ready?”

“Um...yes.  Are you?”

Inda nodded. “Definitely.”

He leaned forward to kiss him just as the music began to swell.

“Aww!” Cherry-Stripe exclaimed.

Tau snapped a picture with his phone.  Inda broke the kiss and took Evred’s wrist in his hand.

“Let’s go to my place,” he said with a uncharacteristically coy smile.

Evred could only nod.  He got up from the table and let Inda lead him outside.  The moment wasn’t perfect, though, despite the background music.  He had to run back inside and grab his coat.  Tau looked at him as he hastily put it on and smiled one of his Tau smiles.

“Do everything I would do,” he said, voice full of laughter.

Evred said nothing and dashed back outside to get back to Inda.  They laced their fingers and began walking the four, short blocks back to his apartment.  Now the moment was perfect.

“So...okay, you have to tell me about this Les Mis fighting game.”

“Inda...I love you, but please don’t ruin this moment.”


End file.
